 Section 27 of Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Clevinger. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant. Chapter 27. Headquarters moved to Memphis. On the road to Memphis. Escaping Jackson. Complaints and requests. Halleck appointed commander-in-chief. Returned to Corinth. Movements of Bragg. Surrender of Clarksville. The advance upon Chattanooga. Sheridan. Colonel of the Michigan Regiment. My position at Corinth, with a nominal command and yet no command, became so unbearable that I asked permission of Halleck to remove my headquarters to Memphis. I had repeatedly asked, between the fall of Donaldson and the evacuation of Corinth, to be relieved from duty under Halleck, but all my applications were refused until the occupation of the town. I then obtained permission to leave the department. But General Sherman happened to call on me as I was about starting and urged me so strongly not to think of going that I concluded to remain. My application to be permitted to remove my headquarters to Memphis was, however, approved, and on the 21st of June I started for that point with my staff and the cavalry escort of only a part of one company. There was a detachment of two or three companies going some 25 miles west to be stationed as a guard to the railroad. I went under cover of this escort to the end of their march, and the next morning proceeded to LaGrange with no convoy but the few cavalrymen I had with me. From LaGrange to Memphis the distance is 47 miles. There were no troops stationed between these two points except a small force guarding a working party which was engaged in repairing the railroad. Not knowing where this party would be found, I halted at LaGrange. General Herbert was in command there at the time and had his headquarters tense, pitched, on the lawn of a very commodious country house. The proprietor was at home and, learning of my arrival, he invited General Herbert and me to dine with him. I accepted the invitation and spent a very pleasant afternoon with my host who was a thorough southern gentleman fully convinced of the justice of cessation. After dinner seated in the capacious porch he entertained me with a recital of the services he was rendering the cause. He was too old to be in the ranks himself, he must have been quite seventy then, but his means enabled him to be useful in other ways. In ordinary times the homestead where he was now living produced the bread and meat to supply the slaves of his main plantation in the lowlands of Mississippi. Now he raised food and forage on both places and thought he would have that year a surplus sufficient to feed three hundred families of poor men who had gone into the war and left their families dependent upon the patriotism of those better off. The crops around me looked fine and I had at the moment an idea that about the time they were ready to be gathered the Yankee troops would be in the neighborhood and harvest them for the benefit of those engaged in the suppression of the rebellion instead of its support. I felt however the greatest respect for the candor of my host and for his zeal in the cause he thoroughly believed in, though our views were as wide apart as it is possible to conceive. The twenty-third of June 1862 on the road from LaGrange to Memphis was very warm, even for that latitude and season. With my staff in small escort I started at an early hour and before noon we arrived within twenty miles of Memphis. At this point I saw a very comfortable looking white-haired gentleman seated at the foot of his house a little distance from the road. I let my staff and escort ride ahead while I halted and for an excuse ask for a glass of water. I was invited at once to dismount and come in. I found my host very genial and communicative and stayed longer than I had intended until the lady of the house announced dinner and asked me to join them. The host, however, was not pressing so that I declined the invitation and mounting my horse rode on. About a mile west from where I had been stopping a road comes up from the southeast joining that from LaGrange to Memphis. A mile west of this junction I found my staff and escort halted and enjoying the shade of forest trees on the lawn of a house located several hundred feet back from the road. Their horses hitched to the fence along the line of the road. I, too, stopped and we remained there until the cool of the afternoon and then rode into Memphis. The gentleman with whom I had stopped twenty miles from Memphis was a Mr. Delosh, a man loyal to the Union. He had not pressed me to tarry longer with him because in the early part of my visit a neighbor, a Dr. Smith, had called Anne on being presented to me backed off the porch as if something had hit him. Mr. Delosh knew that the rebel General Jackson was in that neighborhood with a detachment of cavalry. His neighbor was as earnest in the southern cause as was Mr. Delosh in that of the Union. The exact location of Jackson was entirely unknown to Mr. Delosh, but he was sure that his neighbor would know it and would give information of my presence and this made my stay unpleasant to him after the call of Dr. Smith. I have stated that a detachment of troops was engaged in guarding workmen who were repairing the railroad east of Memphis. On the day I entered Memphis Jackson captured a small herd of beef cattle which had been sent east for the troops so engaged. The drovers were not enlisted men and he released them. The day or two after one of these drovers came to my headquarters and relating the circumstances of his capture said Jackson was very much disappointed that he had not captured me. That he was six or seven miles south of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad when he learned that I was stopping at the house of Mr. Delosh and had ridden with his command to the junction of the road he was on with that from Lagrange and Memphis where he learned that I had passed three-quarters of an hour before. He thought it would be useless to pursue with jaded horses a well-mounted party with so much of a start. Had he gone three-quarters of a mile further he would have found me with my party quietly resting under the shade of trees and without even arms in our hands with which to defend ourselves. General Jackson of course did not communicate his disappointment at not capturing me to a prisoner, a young drover, but from the talk among the soldiers the facts related were learned. A day or two later Mr. Delosh called on me and Memphis to apologize for his apparent incivility and not insisting on my staying for dinner. He said that his wife accused him of market discourtesy but that after the call of his neighbor he had felt restless until I got away. I never met General Jackson before the war nor during it, but have met him since at his very comfortable summer home at Manitou Springs, Colorado. I reminded him of the above incident and this drew from him the response that he was thankful now he had not captured me. I certainly was very thankful too. My occupation of Memphis as district headquarters did not last long. The period however was marked by a few incidents which were novel to me. Up to that time I had not occupied any place in the south where the citizens were at home in any great numbers. Dover was within the fortifications at Fort Donaldson and as far as I remember every citizen was gone. There were no people living at Pittsburgh Landing and but very few at Corinth. Memphis however was a populous city and there were many of the citizens remaining there who were not only thoroughly impressed with the justice of their cause but who thought that even the Yankee soldiery must entertain the same views if they could only be induced to make an honest confession. It took hours of my time every day to listen to complaints and requests. The latter were generally reasonable and if so they were granted. But the complaints were not always or even often well founded. Two instances will mark the general character. First the officer who commanded at Memphis immediately after the city felled into the hands of the national troops had ordered one of the churches of the city to be open to the soldiers. Army chaplains were authorized to occupy the pulpit. Second at the beginning of the war the Confederate Congress had passed a law compensating all property of alien enemies at the south including the debts of southerners to northern men. In consequence of this law when Memphis was occupied the provost Marshall had forcibly collected all the evidence he could obtain of such debts. Almost the first complaints made to me were these two outrages. The gentleman who made the complaints informed me first of his own high standing as a lawyer a citizen and a Christian. He was a deacon in the church which had been defiled by the occupation of Union troops and by a Union chaplain filling the pulpit. He did not use the word defile but he expressed the idea very clearly. He asked that the church be restored to the former congregation. I told him that no order had been issued prohibiting the congregation attending the church. He said of course the congregation could not hear a northern clergyman who differed so radically with them on questions of government. I told him the troops would continue to occupy that church for the present and that they would not be called upon to hear disloyal sentiments proclaimed from the pulpit. This closed the argument on the first point. Then came the second. The complainant said he wanted the papers restored to him which had been surrendered to the provost Marshall under protest. He was a lawyer and before the establishment of the Confederate state's government had been the attorney for a number of large business houses at the north that his government had confiscated all debts due alien enemies and appointed commissioners or officers to collect such debts and pay them over to the government but in his case owing to his high standing he had been permitted to hold these claims for collection. The responsible officials knowing that he would account to the government for every dollar received he said that his government when it came in possession of all its territory would hold him personally responsible for the claims he had surrendered to the provost Marshall. His impudence was so sublime that I was rather amused than indignant. I told him however that if he would remain in Memphis I did not believe the Confederate government would ever molest him. He left no doubt as much amazed at my assurance as I was at the brazenness of his request. On the 11th of July General Hallick received telegraphic orders appointing him to the command of all the armies with headquarters in Washington. His instructions pressed him to proceed to his new field of duty with as little delay as was consistent with the safety and interest of his previous command. I was next in rank and he telegraphed me the same day to report at department headquarters at Corinth. I was not informed by the dispatch that my chief had been ordered to a different field and did not know whether to move my headquarters or not. I telegraphed asking if I was to take my staff with me and received word and reply this place will be your headquarters you can judge for yourself. I left Memphis for my new field without delay and reached Corinth on the 15th of the month. General Hallick remained until the 17th of July but he was very uncommunicative and gave me no information as to what I had been called to Corinth for. When General Hallick left to assume the duties of general-in-chief I remained in command of the district of West Tennessee. Practically I became a department commander because no one was assigned to that position over me and I made my reports direct to the general-in-chief. But I was not assigned to the position of department commander until the 25th of October. General Hallick while commanding the department of the Mississippi had had control as far east as a line drawn from Chattanooga north. My district only embraced West Tennessee and Kentucky west of the Cumberland River. Buell with the Army of the Ohio had as previously stated been ordered east towards Chattanooga with instructions to repair the Memphis and Charleston railroad as he advanced. Troops had been sent north by Hallick along the line of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad to put it in repair as far as Columbus. Other troops were stationed on the railroad from Jackson, Tennessee to Grand Junction and still others on the road west to Memphis. The remainder of the magnificent army of 120,000 men which entered Corinth on the 30th of May had now become so scattered that I was put entirely on the defensive in a territory whose population was hostile to the Union. One of the first things I had to do was to construct fortifications at Corinth better suited to the garrison that could be spared to man them. The structures that had been built during the months of May and June were left as monuments to the skill of the engineer and others were constructed in a few days, planar in design but suited to the command available to defend them. I disposed the troops belonging to the district in conformity with the situation as rapidly as possible. The forces at Donaldson, Clarksville and Nashville with those at Corinth and along the railroad eastward I regarded as sufficient for protection against any attack from the west. The Mobile and Ohio Railroad was guarded from Rienzi south of Corinth to Columbus and the Mississippi Central Railroad from Jackson, Tennessee to Bolivar. Grand Junction and Lagrange on the Memphis Railroad were abandoned. South of the Army of the Tennessee and confronting it was Van Dorn. With a sufficient force to organize a movable army of 35 to 40,000 men after being reinforced by price from Missouri, this movable force could be thrown against either Corinth, Bolivar or Memphis. And the best that could be done in such event would be to weaken the points not threatened in order to reinforce the one that was. Nothing could be gained on the national side by attacking elsewhere because the territory already occupied was as much as the force present could guard. The most anxious period of the war to me was during the time the Army of the Tennessee was guarding the territory acquired by the fall of Corinth and Memphis and before I was sufficiently reinforced to take the offensive. The enemy also had cavalry operating in our rear, making it necessary to guard every point of the railroad back to Columbus on the security of which we were dependent for all our supplies. Headquarters were connected by telegraph with all points of the command except Memphis and the Mississippi below Columbus. With these points, communication was had by the railroad to Columbus, then down the river by boat. To reinforce Memphis would take three or four days and to get an order there for troops to move elsewhere would have taken at least two days. Memphis therefore was practically isolated from the balance of the command, but it was in Sherman's hands. Then, too, the troops were well entrenched and the gunboats made a valuable auxiliary. During the two months after the departure of General Halleck there was much fighting between small bodies of the contending armies, but these encounters were dwarfed by the magnitude of the main battle so as to be now almost forgotten except by those engaged in them. Some of them, however, estimated by the losses on both sides and killed and wounded were equal in hard fighting to most of the battles of the Mexican war which attracted so much of the attention of the public when they occurred. About the 23rd of July Colonel Ross, commanding at Bolivar, was threatened by a large force of the enemy so that he had to be reinforced from Jackson and Corinth. On the 27th there was skirmishing on the Hatchey River eight miles from Bolivar. On the 30th I learned from Colonel P. H. Sheridan, who had been far to the south that Bragg, in person, was at Rome, Georgia, with his troops moving by rail, by way of mobile, to Chattanooga, and his wagon train marching overland to join him at Rome. Price was at this time at Holly Springs, Mississippi, with a large force and occupied Grand Junction as an outpost. I proposed to the General-in-Chief to be permitted to drive him away, but was informed that, while I had to judge for myself, the best use to make of my troops was not to scatter them, but hold them ready to reinforce Buell. The movement of Bragg himself, with his wagon trains to Chattanooga across country, while his troops were transported over a long, roundabout road to the same destination without need of guards, except when in my immediate front, demonstrates the advantage which troops enjoy while acting in a country where the people are friendly. Buell was marching through a hostile region, and had to have his communications thoroughly guarded back to a base of supplies. More men were required to further the national troops penetrated into the enemy's country. I, with an army sufficiently powerful to have destroyed Bragg, was purely on the defensive, and accomplishing no more than to hold a force far inferior to my own. On the 2nd of August I was ordered from Washington to live upon the country, on the resources of citizens hostile to the government, so far as practicable. I was also directed to handle rebels within our lines without gloves, to imprison them, or to expel them from their homes and from our lines. I do not recollect having arrested and confined a citizen, not a soldier, during the entire rebellion. I am aware that a great many were sent to northern prisons, particularly to Joliet, Illinois, by some of my subordinates with the statement that it was my order. I had all such released, the moment I learned of their arrest, and finally sent a staff officer north to release every prisoner who was said to be confined by my order. There were many citizens at home who deserved punishment because they were soldiers when an opportunity was afforded to inflict an injury to the national cause. This class was not the kind that were apt to get arrested, and I deemed it better that a few guilty men should escape then, that a great many innocent ones should suffer. On the 14th of August I was ordered to send two more divisions to Bewell. They were sent the same day by way of Decatur. On the 22nd Colonel Rodney Mason surrendered Clarksville with six companies of his regiment. Colonel Mason was one of the officers who had led their regiments off the field at almost the first fire of the rebels at Shiloh. He was by nature and education a gentleman, and was terribly mortified at his action when the battle was over. He came to me with tears in his eyes and begged to be allowed to have another trial. I felt great sympathy for him and sent him with his regiment to Garrison Clarksville and Donaldson's. He selected Clarksville for his headquarters, no doubt because he regarded it as the post of danger, it being nearer the enemy. But when he was summoned to surrender by a band of guerrillas, his constitutional weakness overcame him. He inquired the number of men the enemy had, and receiving a response indicating a force greater than his own, he said if he could be satisfied of that fact he would surrender. Arrangements were made for him to count the guerrillas and having satisfied himself that the enemy had the greater force, he surrendered and informed his subordinate at Donaldson of the fact, advising him to do the same. The guerrillas paroled their prisoners and moved upon Donaldson, but the officer in command at that point marched out to meet them and drove them away. Among other embarrassments at the time of which I now write was the fact that the government wanted to get out all the cotton possible from the south and directed me to give every facility toward that end. Pay in gold was authorized and stations on the Mississippi River and on the railroad in our possession had to be designated where cotton would be received. This opened to the enemy not only the means of converting cotton and money, which had a value all over the world and which they so much needed, but it afforded them means of obtaining accurate and intelligent information in regard to our position and strength. It was also demoralizing to the troops. Citizens obtaining permits from the Treasury Department had to be protected within our lines and given facilities to get out cotton by which they realized enormous profits. Men who had enlisted to fight the battles of their country did not like to be engaged in protecting a traffic which went to the support of an enemy they had to fight, and the profits of which went to men who shared none of their dangers. On the 30th of August Colonel M. D. Leggett, near Bolivar, with the 20th and 29th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was attacked by a force supposed to be about 4,000 strong. The enemy was driven away with a loss of more than 100 men. On the 1st of September the bridge guard at Meddon was attacked by guerrillas. The guard held the position until reinforced when the enemy were routed, leaving about 50 of their number on the field dead or wounded, our loss being only 2 killed and 15 wounded. On the same day, Colonel Dennis, with a force of less than 500 infantry and two pieces of artillery, met the cavalry of the enemy in strong force, a few miles west of Meddon, and drove them away with great loss. Our troops buried 179 of the enemy's dead left upon the field. Afterwards it was found that all the houses in the vicinity of the battlefield were turned into hospitals for the wounded. Our loss, as reported at the time, was 45 killed and wounded. On the 2nd of September I was ordered to send more reinforcements to Bewell. Jackson and Bolivar were yet threatened, but I sent the reinforcements. On the 4th I received direct orders to send Granger's division also to Louisville, Kentucky. General Bewell had left Corinth about the 10th of June to march upon Chattanooga. Bragg, who had superseded Beauregard in command, sent one division from Tupelo on the 27th of June for the same place. This gave Bewell about 17 days start. If he had not been required to repair the railroad as he advanced, the march would have been made in 18 days at the outside, and Chattanooga must have been reached by the National Forces before the rebels could have possibly got there. The road between Nashville and Chattanooga could easily have been put in repair by other troops, so that communication with the North would have been opened in a short time after the occupation of the place by the National troops. If Bewell had been permitted to move in the first instance, with a whole of the Army of the Ohio and that portion of the Army of the Mississippi afterwards sent to him, he could have thrown four divisions from his own command along the line of road to repair and guard it. Granger's division was promptly sent on the 4th of September, I was at the station at Corinth when the troops reached that point, and found General P. H. Sheridan with them. I expressed surprise at seeing him and said that I had not expected him to go. He showed decided disappointment at the prospect of being detained. I felt a little nettle at his desire to get away and did not detain him. Sheridan was a first lieutenant in the regiment in which I had served eleven years, the Fourth Infantry, and stationed on the Pacific Coast when the war broke out. He was promoted to a captaincy in May 1861 and before the close of the year managed in some way, I do not know how, to get east. He went to Missouri. Halleck had known him as a very successful young officer in managing campaigns against the Indians on the Pacific Coast and appointed him acting quartermaster in southwest Missouri. There was no difficulty in getting supplies forward while Sheridan served in that capacity, but he got into difficulty with his immediate superiors because of his stringent rules for preventing the use of public transportation for private purposes. He asked to be relieved from further duty in the capacity in which he was engaged and his request was granted. When General Halleck took to field in April 1862, Sheridan was assigned to duty on his staff. During the advance on Corinth, a vacancy occurred in the Kernel Sea of the 2nd Michigan Cavalry. Governor Blair of Michigan telegraphed General Halleck asking him to suggest the name of a professional soldier for the vacancy, saying he would appoint a good man without reference to his state. Sheridan was named and was so conspicuously efficient that when Corinth was reached he was assigned to command a cavalry brigade in the Army of the Mississippi. He was in command at Booneville on the 1st of July with two small regiments when he was attacked by a force full three times as numerous as his own. By very skilful maneuvers and boldness of attack he completely routed the enemy. For this he was made a Brigadier General and became a conspicuous figure in the Army about Corinth. On this account I was sorry to see him leaving me. His departure was probably fortunate for he rendered distinguished services in his new field. Granger and Sheridan reached Louisville before Buell got there and on the night of their arrival Sheridan with his command threw up works around the railroad station for the defense of troops as they came from the front. End of Section 27. Recording by Jim Clevinger, Lillorock, Arkansas. Jim at jocclv.com Jim Clevinger. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant Chapter 28. Advance of Van Dorn and Price. Price enters Iuca. Battle of Iuca. At this time, September 4, I had two divisions of the Army of the Mississippi stationed at Corinth, Renzi, Jacinto, and Danville. There were at Corinth also Davies' division and two brigades of MacArthur's besides cavalry and artillery. This force constituted my left wing of which Rosecrans was in command. General Ord commanded the center from Bethel to Humboldt on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and from Jackson to Boliver where the Mississippi Central is crossed by the Hatchey River. General Sherman commanded on the right at Memphis with two of his brigades back at Brownsville at the crossing of the Hatchey River by the Memphis and Ohio Railroad. This made the most convenient arrangement I could devise for concentrating all my spare forces upon any threatened point. All the troops of the command were within telegraphic communication with each other except those under Sherman by bringing a portion of his command to Brownsville from which point there was a railroad and telegraph back to Memphis. Communication could be had with that part of my command within a few hours by the use of couriers in case it became necessary to reinforce Corinth by this arrangement all the troops at Boliver except a small guard could be sent by rail by the way of Jackson in less than 24 hours while the troops from Brownsville could march up to Boliver to take their place. On the 7th of September I learned of the advance of Van Dorn and Price, apparently upon Corinth. One division was brought from Memphis to Boliver to meet any emergency that might arise from this move of the enemy. I was much concerned because my first duty, after holding the territory acquired within my command, was to prevent further reinforcing of Bragg in Middle Tennessee. Already the Army of Northern Virginia had defeated the Army under General Pope and was invading Maryland. In the center General Buell was on his way to Louisville and Bragg marching parallel to him with a large Confederate force for the Ohio River. I had been constantly culled upon to reinforce Buell until at this time my entire force numbered less than 50,000 men of all arms. This included everything from Cairo south within my jurisdiction. If I too should be driven back the Ohio River would become the line dividing the belligerents west of the Alleghenies while at the east the line was already further north than when hostilities commenced at the opening of the war. It is true Nashville was never given up after its first capture, but it would have been isolated and the garrison there would have been obliged to beat a hasty retreat if the troops in west Tennessee had been compelled to fall back. To say at the end of the second year of the war the line dividing the contestants at the east was pushed north of Maryland a state that had not seceded and at the west beyond Kentucky another state which had been always loyal would have been discouraging indeed. As it was many loyal people despaired in the fall of 1862 of ever saving the Union. The administration at Washington was much concerned for the safety of the cause it held so dear, but I believe there was never a day when the president did not think that in some way or other a cause so just as ours would come out triumphantly. Up to the 11th of September Rosecrans still had troops on the railroad east of Corinth, but they had all been ordered in. By the 12th all were in except a small force under Colonel Murphy of the 8th Wisconsin. He had been detained to guard the remainder of the stores which had not yet been brought in to Corinth. On the 13th of September General Sterling Price entered Iooka a town about 20 miles east of Corinth on the Memphis and Charleston railroad. Colonel Murphy with a few men was guarding the place. He made no resistance but evacuated the town on the approach of the enemy. I was apprehensive lest the object of the rebels might be to get troops in the Tennessee to reinforce Bragg as it was afterwards ascertained to be. The authorities at Washington, including the general in chief of the army, were very anxious as I have said about affairs both in east and middle Tennessee, and my anxiety was quite as great on their account as for any danger threatening my command. I had not forced enough at Corinth to attack Price even by stripping everything and there was danger that before troops could be got from other points he might be far on his way across the Tennessee. To prevent this all spare forces at Boliver and Jackson were ordered to Corinth and cars were concentrated at Jackson for their transportation. Within 24 hours from the transmission of the orders the troops were at their destination although there had been a delay of 4 hours resulting from the forward train getting off the track and stopping all the others. This gave a reinforcement of near 8000 men, general Orden command. General Rosecrans commanded the district of Corinth with a movable force of about 9000 independent of the garrison deemed necessary to be left behind. It was known that general Van Dorn was about four days march south of us with a large force. It might have been part of his plan to attack at Corinth Price coming from the east while he came up from the south. My desire was to attack Price before Van Dorn could reach Corinth or go to his relief. General Rosecrans had previously had his headquarters at Iooka where his command was spread out along the Memphis and Charleston Railroad eastward. While there he had a most excellent map prepared showing all the roads and streams in the surrounding country. He was also personally familiar with the ground so that I deferred very much to him in my plans for the approach. We had cars enough to transport all of general Orden's command which was to go by rail to Burnsville a point on the road about 7 miles west of Iooka. From there his troops were to march by the north side of the railroad and attack Price from the northwest while Rosecrans was to move eastward from his position south of Corinth by way of the Jacinto Road. The main force was to hold the Jacinto Road where it turns to the northeast while the main force moved on the Fulton Road which comes into Iooka further east. This plan was suggested by Rosecrans. Bear Creek a few miles to the east of the Fulton Road is a formidable obstacle to the movement of troops in the absence of bridges all of which in September 1862 had been destroyed in that vicinity. The Tennessee to the northeast not many miles away was also a formidable obstacle for an army followed by a pursuing force. Ord was on the northwest and even if a rebel movement had been possible in that direction it could have brought only temporary relief for it would have carried Price's army to the rear of the national forces and isolated it from all support. It looked to me that if Price would remain in Iooka until we could get there his annihilation was inevitable. On the morning of the 18th of September General Ord moved by rail to Burnsville and there left the cars and moved out to perform his part of the program. He was to get as near the enemy as possible during the day and entrench himself so as to hold his position until the next morning. Rosecrans was to be up by the morning of the 19th on the two roads before described and the attack was to be from all three quarters simultaneously. Troops enough were left at Jacinto and Rienzi to detain any cavalry that Van Dorn might send out to make a sudden dash into Corinth until I could be notified. There was a telegraph wire along the railroad so there would be no delay in communication. I detained cars and locomotives enough at Burnsville to transport the whole of Ord's command at once and if Van Dorn had moved against Corinth instead of Iooka I could have thrown in reinforcements to the number of 7000 or 8000 before he could have arrived. I remained at Burnsville with a detachment of about 900 men from Ord's command and communicated with my two wings by courier. Ord met the advance of the enemy soon after leaving Burnsville, quite a sharp engagement ensued, but he drove the rebels back with considerable loss, including one general officer killed. He maintained his position and was ready to attack by daylight the next morning. I was very much disappointed at receiving a dispatch from Rosecrans after midnight from Jacinto 22 miles from Iooka, saying that some of his command had been delayed and that the rear of his column was not yet up as far as Jacinto. He said, however, that he would still be at Iooka by two o'clock the next day. I did not believe this possible because of the distance and the condition of the roads, which was bad, besides troops after a forced march of 20 miles are not in a good condition for fighting the moment they get through. It might do, in marching to relieve a beleaguered garrison, but not to make an assault. I immediately sent Ord a copy of Rosecrans' dispatch and ordered him to be in readiness to attack the moment he heard the sound of guns to the south or southeast. He was instructed to notify his officers to be on the alert for any indications of battle. During the nineteenth the wind blew in the wrong direction to transmit sound either towards the point where Ord was or to Burnsville where I had remained. A couple of hours before dark on the nineteenth Rosecrans arrived with the head of his column at Garnet's, the point where the Jacinto road to Iooka leaves the road going east. He here turned north without sending any troops to the Fulton road. While still moving in column up the Jacinto road he met a force of the enemy and had his advance badly beaten and driven back upon the main road. In this short engagement his loss was considerable for the number engaged and one battery was taken from him. The wind was still blowing hard and in the wrong direction to transmit sounds towards either Ord or me. Neither he nor I nor anyone in either command heard a gun that was fired upon the battlefield. After the engagement Rosecrans sent me a dispatch announcing the result. This was brought by a courier. There was no road between Burnsville and the position then occupied by Rosecrans and the country was impassable for a man on horseback. The courier bearing the message was compelled to move west nearly to Jacinto before he found a road leading to Burnsville. This made it a late hour of the night before I learned of the battle that had taken place during the afternoon. I at once notified Ord of the fact and ordered him to attack early in the morning. The next morning Rosecrans himself renewed the attack and went into Iocca with but little resistance. Ord also went in according to orders without hearing a gun from the south of town but supposing the troops coming from the southwest must be up by that time. Rosecrans however had put no troops upon the Fulton Road and the enemy had taken advantage of this neglect and retreated by that road during the night. Word was soon brought to me that our troops were in Iocca. I immediately rode into town and found that the enemy was not being pursued even by the cavalry. I ordered pursuit by the whole of Rosecrans' command and went on with him a few miles in person. He followed only a few miles after I left him and then went into camp and the pursuit was continued no further. I was disappointed at the result of the battle of Iocca but I had so high an opinion of General Rosecrans that I found no fault at the time. End of Section 28, Recording by Jim Clevenger, Little Rock, Arkansas. Jim at jocclv.com Section 29 of Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Clevenger, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant, Chapter 29 Van Dorn's Movements Battle of Corinth Command of the Department of the Tennessee On the 19th of September, General George H. Thomas was ordered east to reinforce Buell. This threw the Army at my command still more on the defensive. The Memphis and Charleston Railroad was abandoned except at Corinth and small forces were left at Chihuahua and Grand Junction. Soon afterwards the ladder of these two places was given up and Bolliver became our most advanced position on the Mississippi Central Railroad. Our cavalry was kept well to the front and frequent expeditions were sent out to watch the movements of the enemy. We were in a country where nearly all the people except the Negroes were hostile to us and friendly to the cause we were trying to suppress. It was easy, therefore, for the enemy to get early information on our every move. We, on the contrary, had to go after our information in force and then, often, returned without it. On the 22nd, Bolliver was threatened by a large force from south of Grand Junction, supposed to be twenty regiments of infantry with cavalry and artillery. I reinforced Bolliver and went to Jackson in person to superintend the movement of troops to whatever point the attack might be made upon. The troops from Corinth were brought up in time to repel the threatened movement without a battle. Our cavalry followed the enemy south of Davis's Mill in Mississippi. On the 30th, I found that Mandorn was apparently endeavoring to strike the Mississippi River above Memphis. At the same time, other points within my command were so threatened that it was impossible to concentrate a force to drive him away. There was at this juncture a large Union force at Helena, Arkansas, which, had it been within my command, I could have ordered across the river to attack and break up the Mississippi Central Railroad far to the south. This would not only have called Mandorn back, but would have compelled the retention of a large rebel force far to the south to prevent a repetition of such raids on the enemy's line of supplies. Geographical lines between the commands during the rebellion were not always well chosen, or they were too rigidly adhered to. Mandorn did not attempt to get upon the line above Memphis, as had apparently been his intention. He was simply covering a deeper design, one much more important to his cause. By the 1st of October it was fully apparent that Corinth was to be attacked with great force and determination, and that Van Dorn, Lovell, Price, Villapeake, and Rust had joined their strength for this purpose. There was some skirmishing outside of Corinth with the advance of the enemy on the 3rd, the rebels massed in the northwest angle of the Memphis and Charleston and the Mobile and Ohio Railroads, and were thus between the troops at Corinth and all possible reinforcements. Any fresh troops for us must come by a circuitous route. On the night of the 3rd, accordingly, I ordered General McPherson, who was at Jackson, to join Rosecrans at Corinth with reinforcements picked up along the line of the railroad equal to a brigade. Hurlbut had been ordered from Boliver to march for the same destination, and as Van Dorn was coming upon Corinth from the northwest, some of his men fell in with the advance of Hurlbut's and some skirmishing ensued on the evening of the 3rd. On the 4th Van Dorn made a dashing attack, hoping, no doubt, to capture Rosecrans before his reinforcements could come up. In that case, the enemy himself could have occupied the defenses of Corinth and held at bay all the Union troops that arrived. In fact, he could have taken the offensive against the reinforcements with three or four times their number and still left a sufficient garrison in the works about Corinth to hold him. He came near success. Some of his troops penetrating the national lines at least once, but the works that were built after Halick's departure enabled Rosecrans to hold his position until the troops of both McPherson and Hurlbut approached towards the rebel front and rear. The enemy was finally driven back with great slaughter. All their charges made with great gallantry were repulse. The loss on our side was heavy, but nothing to compare with Van Dorn's. McPherson came up with the train of cars bearing his command as close to the enemy as was prudent, debarked on the rebel flank and got into the support of Rosecrans just after their repulse. His approach, as well as that of Hurlbut, was known to the enemy and had a morale effect. General Rosecrans, however, failed to follow up the victory, although I had given specific orders in advance of the battle for him to pursue the moment the enemy was repelled. He did not do so, and I repeated the order after the battle. In the first order he was notified that the force of four thousand men, which was going to his assistance, would be in great peril if the enemy was not pursued. General Ord had joined Hurlbut on the fourth and being senior took command of his troops. This force encountered the head of Van Dorn's retreating column just as it was crossing the hatchee by a bridge some ten miles out from Corinth. The bottom land here was swampy and bad for the operation of troops, making a good place to get an enemy into. Ord attacked the troops that had crossed the bridge and drove them back in a panic. Many were killed and others were drowned by being pushed off the bridge in their hurried retreat. Ord followed and met the main force. He was too weak in numbers to assault, but he held the bridge and compelled the enemy to resume his retreat by another bridge higher up the stream. Ord was wounded in his engagement and the command devolved on Hurlbut. Rosecrans did not start in pursuit till the morning of the fifth and then took the wrong road. Moving in the enemy's country he traveled with a wagon train to carry his provisions and munitions of war. His march was therefore slower than that of the enemy, who was moving towards his supplies. Two or three hours of pursuit on the day of battle, without anything except what the men carried on their persons, would have been worth more than any pursuit commenced the next day could have possibly been. Even when he did start, if Rosecrans had followed the route taken by the enemy, he would have come upon Van Dorn in a swamp with a stream in front and Ord holding the only bridge. But he took the road leading north towards Chawalla instead of west, and after having marched as far as the enemy had moved to get to the Hatchey, he was as far from battle as when he started. Hurlbut had not the numbers to meet any such force as Van Dorn's if they had been in any mood for fighting, and he might have been in great peril. I now regarded the time to accomplish anything by pursuit as past, and after Rosecrans reached Jonesboro I ordered him to return. He kept on to Ripley, however, and was persistent in wanting to go further. I therefore ordered him to halt and submitted the matter to the general-in-chief who allowed me to exercise my judgment in the matter, but inquired why not pursue? Upon this I ordered Rosecrans back. Had he gone much further he would have met a greater force than Van Dorn had at Corinth and behind entrenchments or on chosen ground, and the probabilities are he would have lost his army. The battle of Corinth was bloody, our loss being 315 killed, 1,812 wounded, and 232 missing. The enemy lost many more. Rosecrans reported 1,423 dead and 2,225 prisoners. He fought behind Bresswerks, which accounts for some degree of the disparity. Among the killed on our side was General Hackleman. General Oglesby was badly, it was for some time, suppose, mortally wounded. I received a congratulatory letter from the President which expressed also his sorrow for the losses. This battle was recognized by me as being a decided victory, though not so complete as I had hoped for, nor nearly so complete as I now think was within the easy grasp of the commanding officer at Corinth. Since the war it is known that the result, as it was, was a crushing blow to the enemy and felt by him much more than it was appreciated at the North. The battle relieved me from any further anxiety on the safety of the territory within my jurisdiction and soon after receiving reinforcements I suggested to the General-in-Chief a forward movement against Vicksburg. On the 23rd of October I learned of Pemberton's being in command at Holly Springs and much reinforced by conscripts and troops from Alabama and Texas. The same day General Rose Cranes was relieved from duty with my command and shortly after he succeeded Buell in the command of the Army in Middle Tennessee. I was delighted at the promotion of General Rose Cranes to a separate command because I still believed that when independent of an immediate superior the qualities which I at that time credited him with possessing would show themselves. As a subordinate I found that I could not make him do as I wished and had determined to relieve him from duty that very day. At the close of the operations just described my force in round numbers was 48,500. Of these 4800 were in Kentucky and Illinois, 7,000 in Memphis, 19,200 from Mound City South and 17,500 at Corinth. General McClearnedon had been authorized from Washington to go north and organize troops to be used in opening the Mississippi. These new levies with other reinforcements now began to come in. On the 25th of October I was placed in command of the Department of the Tennessee. Reinforcements continued to come from the north and by the 2nd of November I was prepared to take the initiative. This was a great relief after the two and a half months of continued defense over a large district of country and where nearly every citizen was an enemy ready to give information of our every move. I have described very imperfectly a few of the battles and skirmishes that took place during this time to describe all would take more space than I can allot to the purpose to make special mention of all the officers and troops who distinguished themselves would take a volume. End of Section 29. Recording by Jim Clevenger, Little Rock, Arkansas. Jim at J-O-C-C-L-E-V.com Section 30 of Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Clevenger, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant. Chapter 30. The Campaign Against Vicksburg. Employing the Freedmen. Occupation of Holly Springs. Sherman Ordered to Memphis. Sherman's Movements, now in the Mississippi. Van Dorn Captures Holly Springs. Collecting Forage and Food. Vicksburg was important to the enemy because it occupied the first high ground coming close to the river below Memphis. From there a railroad runs east connecting with other roads leading to all points of the southern states. A railroad also starts from the opposite side of the river extending west as far as Shreveport, Louisiana. Vicksburg was the only channel at the time of the events of which this chapter treats connecting the parts of the Confederacy divided by the Mississippi. So long as it was held by the enemy the free navigation of the river was prevented hence its importance. Points on the river between Vicksburg and Port Hudson were held as dependencies but their fall was sure to follow the capture of the former place. The Campaign Against Vicksburg commenced on the 2nd of November as indicated in a dispatch to the General-in-Chief in the following words. I have commenced a movement on Grand Junction with three divisions from Corinth and two from Bolivar. We'll leave here, Jackson, Tennessee, tomorrow and take command in person. If found practicable I will go to Holly Springs and maybe Grenada completing railroad and telegraph as I go. At this time my command was holding the Mobile and Ohio Railroad from about 25 miles south of Corinth north to Columbus, Kentucky. The Mississippi Central from Bolivar north to its junction with the Mobile and Ohio. The Memphis and Charleston from Corinth east to Bear Creek and the Mississippi River from Cairo to Memphis. My entire command was no more than was necessary to hold these lines and hardly that if kept on the defensive. By moving against the enemy and into his unsubdued or not yet captured territory driving their army before us these lines would nearly hold themselves thus affording a large force for field operations. My moving force at that time was about 30,000 men and I estimated the enemy confronting me under Pemberton at about the same number. General McPherson commanded my left wing and General C. S. Hamilton the center while Sherman was at Memphis with the right wing. Pemberton was fortified at the Tallahatchie but occupied Holly Springs and Grand Junction on the Mississippi Central Railroad. On the eighth we occupied Grand Junction and LaGrange throwing a considerable force seven or eight miles south along the line of the railroad. The road from Bolivar forward was repaired and put in running order as the troops advanced. Up to this time it had been regarded as an axiom of war that large bodies of troops must operate from a base of supplies which they always covered and guarded in all forward movements. There was delay therefore in repairing the road back and in gathering and forwarding supplies to the front. By my orders and in accordance with previous instructions from Washington all the forage within reach was collected under the supervision of the chief quartermaster and the provisions under the chief commissary. Receipts being given when there was anyone to take them. The supplies in any event to be accounted for as government stores. The stock was bountiful but still it gave me no idea of the possibility of supplying a moving column in an enemy's country from the country itself. It was at this point probably where the first idea of a freedman's bureau took its origin. Orders of the government prohibited the expulsion of the Negroes from the protection of the army when they came in voluntarily. Humanity forbade allowing them to starve. With such an army of them of all ages in both sexes as had congregated about Grand Junction, amounting to many thousands, it was impossible to advance. There was no special authority for feeding them unless they were employed as teamsters, cooks and pioneers with the army. But only able-bodied young men were suitable for such work. This labor would support but a very limited percentage of them. The plantations were all deserted, the cotton and corn were ripe. Men and women and children above ten years of age could be employed in saving these crops. To do this work with contraband or to have it done, organization under a competent chief was necessary. On inquiring for such a man, Chaplain Eaton, now and for many years the very abled United States Commissioner of Education, was suggested. He proved as efficient in that field as he has since done in his present one. I gave him all the assistance and guards he called for. We together fixed the prices to be paid for the Negro labor, whether rendered to the government or to individuals. The cotton was to be picked from abandoned plantations, the laborers to receive the stipulated price. My recollection is twelve and a half cents per pound for picking and ginning from the quartermaster. He shipping the cotton north to be sold for the benefit of the government. Citizens remaining on their plantations were allowed the privilege of having their crops saved by freedmen on the same terms. At once the freedmen became self-sustaining. The money was not paid to them directly, but was expended judiciously and for their benefit. They gave me no trouble afterwards. Later the freedmen were engaged in cutting wood along the Mississippi River to supply the large number of steamers on that stream. A good price was paid for chopping wood used for the supply of government steamers. Steamers charted and which the government had to supply with fuel. Those supplying their own fuel paid a much higher price. In this way a fund was created, not only sufficient to feed and clothe all old and young, male and female, but to build them comfortable cabins, hospitals for the sick, and to supply them with many comforts they had never known before. At this stage of the campaign against Vicksburg I was very much disturbed by newspaper rumors that General McLerndon was to have a separate and independent command within mine to operate against Vicksburg by way of the Mississippi River. Two commanders on the same field are always one too many, and in this case I did not think the general selected had either the experience or the qualifications to fit him for so important a position. I feared for the safety of the troops entrusted to him, especially as he was to raise new levies, raw troops, to execute so important a trust. But on the twelfth I received a dispatch from General Hallick saying that I had command of all the troops sent to my department and authorizing me to fight the enemy where I pleased. The next day my cavalry was in Holly Springs and the enemy fell back south of the Tallahatchie. Holly Springs I selected for my depot of supplies and munitions of war, all of which at that time came by rail from Columbus, Kentucky except a few stores collected about LaGrange and Grand Junction. This was a long line increasing in length as we moved south to maintain in an enemy's country. On the fifteenth of November while I was still at Holly Springs I sent word to Sherman to meet me at Columbus. We were but forty-seven miles apart, yet the most expeditious way for us to meet was for me to take the rail to Columbus and Sherman a steamer for the same place. At that meeting, besides talking over my general plans, I gave him his orders to join me with two divisions and to march them down the Mississippi Central Railroad if he could. Sherman, who was always prompt, was up by the twenty-ninth to Cottage Hill, ten miles north of Oxford. He brought three divisions with him, leaving a garrison of only four regiments of infantry, a couple of pieces of artillery, and a small detachment of cavalry. Further reinforcements, he knew, were on their way from the north to Memphis. About this time General Hallick ordered troops from Helena, Arkansas, territory west of the Mississippi was not under my command then, to cut the road in Pemberton's rear. The expedition was under Generals Hovey and CeCe Washburn and was successful so far as reaching the railroad was concerned, but the damage done was very slight and was soon repaired. The Tallahatchie, which confronted me, was very high. The railroad bridge destroyed in Pemberton strongly fortified on the south side. A crossing would have been impossible in the presence of an enemy. I sent the cavalry higher up the stream and they secured a crossing. This caused the enemy to evacuate their position, which was possibly accelerated by the expedition of Hovey and Washburn. The enemy was followed as far south as Oxford by the main body of troops and some seventeen miles further by McPherson's command. Here the pursuit was halted to repair the railroad from the Tallahatchie northward in order to bring up supplies. The piles on which the railroad bridge rested had been left standing. The work of constructing a roadway for the troops was but a short matter and later rails were laid for cars. During the delay at Oxford in repairing railroads I learned that an expedition down the Mississippi now was inevitable and desiring to have a competent commander in charge I ordered Sherman on the 8th of December back to Memphis to take charge. The following were his orders. Headquarters 13th Army Corps Department of the Tennessee, Oxford, Mississippi, December 8, 1862 Major General W. T. Sherman, commanding right wing You will proceed with as little delay as possible to Memphis, Tennessee, taking with you one division of your present command. On your arrival at Memphis you will assume command of all the troops there and that portion of General Curtis's forces at present east of the Mississippi River and organize them into brigades and divisions in your own army. As soon as possible move with them down the river to the vicinity of Vicksburg and with the cooperation of the gunboat fleet under command of flag officer Porter Proceed to the reduction of that place in such a manner as circumstances and your own judgment may dictate. The amount of rations, forage, land transportation, etc. Necessary to take will be left entirely with yourself. The quartermaster at St. Louis will be instructed to send you transportation for 30,000 men should you still find yourself deficient. Your quartermaster will be authorized to make up to deficiency from such transports as may come into the port of Memphis. On arriving in Memphis put yourself in communication with Admiral Porter and arrange with him for his cooperation. Inform me at the earliest practicable day of the time when you will embark and such plans as may then be matured. I will hold the forces here in readiness to cooperate with you in such manner as the movements of the enemy may make necessary. Leave the district of Memphis in the command of an efficient officer and with the garrison of four regiments of infantry, the siege guns, and whatever cavalry may be there. U.S. Grant, Major General. This idea had presented itself to my mind earlier, for on the 3rd of December I asked Halleck if it would not be well to hold the enemy south of the Yalabusha and move a force from Helena and Memphis on Vicksburg. On the 5th again I suggested from Oxford to Halleck that if the Helena troops were at my command I thought it would be possible to take them and the Memphis forces south of the mouth of the Yauzu River and thus secure Vicksburg and the state of Mississippi. Halleck on the same day, the 5th of December directed me not to attempt to hold the country south of the Tallahatchie but to collect 25,000 troops at Memphis by the 20th for the Vicksburg expedition. I sent Sherman with two divisions at once, informed the general-in-chief of the fact and asked whether I should command the expedition down the river myself or send Sherman. I was authorized to do as I thought best for the accomplishment of the great object in view. I sent Sherman and so informed General Halleck. As stated, my action in sending Sherman back was expedited by a desire to get him in command of the forces separated from my direct supervision. I feared that Delay might bring McLernden, who was his senior, and who had authority from the President and Secretary of War to exercise that particular command and independently. I doubted McLernden's fitness, and I had good reason to believe that in forestalling him I was by no means giving offense to those whose authority to command was above both him and me. Neither my orders to General Sherman, nor the correspondence between us or between General Halleck and myself contemplated at the time my going further south than Yalabusha. Pemberton's force in my front was the main part of the garrison of Vicksburg as the force with me was the defense of the territory held by us in West Tennessee and Kentucky. I hoped to hold Pemberton in my front while Sherman should get in his rear and into Vicksburg. The further north the enemy could be held, the better. It was understood, however, between General Sherman and myself that our movements were to be cooperative. If Pemberton could not be held away from Vicksburg, I was to follow him. But at that time it was not expected to abandon the railroad north of the Yalabusha with that point as a secondary base of supplies. The possibility of moving down to Yazu until communications could be opened with the Mississippi was contemplated. It was my intention and so understood by Sherman and his command that if the enemy should fall back I would follow him even to the gates of Vicksburg. I intended in such an event to hold the road to Granada on the Yalabusha and cut loose from there expecting to establish a new base of supplies on the Yazu or at Vicksburg itself with Granada to fall back upon in case of failure. It should be remembered that at the time I speak of it had not been demonstrated that an army could operate in an enemy's territory depending upon the country for supplies. A halt was called at Oxford with the advanced 17 miles south of there to bring up the road to the latter point and to bring supplies of food, forage, and munitions to the front. On the 18th of December I received orders from Washington to divide my command into four army corps with General McLernden to command one of them and to be assigned to that part of the army which was to operate down the Mississippi. This interfered with my plans but probably resulted in my ultimately taking the command in person. McLernden was at that time in Springfield, Illinois. The order was obeyed without any delay. Dispatches were sent to him the same day in conformity. On the 20th General Van Dorn appeared at Holly Springs, my secondary base of supplies, captured the garrison of 1500 men commanded by Colonel Murphy of the 8th Wisconsin Regiment and destroyed all our munitions of war, food, and forage. The capture was a disgraceful one to the officer commanding but not to the troops under him. At the same time, forests got on our line of railroad between Jackson, Tennessee and Columbus, Kentucky doing much damage to it. This cut me off from all communication with the North for more than a week and it was more than two weeks before rations or forage could be issued from stores obtained in the regular way. This demonstrated the impossibility of maintaining so long a line of road over which to draw supplies for an army moving in an enemy's country. I determined therefore to abandon my campaign into the interior with Columbus as a base and return to Lagrange and Grand Junction, destroying the road to my front and repairing the road to Memphis, making the Mississippi River the line over which to draw supplies. Pemberton was falling back at the same time. The moment I received the news of Van Dorn's success, I sent the cavalry at the front back to drive him from the country. He had start enough to move north, destroying the railroad in many places and to attack several small garrisons entrenched as guards to the railroad. All these he found warned of his coming and prepared to receive him. Van Dorn did not succeed in capturing a single garrison except the one at Holly Springs, which was larger than all the others attacked by him put together. Murphy was also warned of Van Dorn's approach but made no preparations to meet him. He did not even notify his command. Colonel Murphy was the officer who, two months before, had evacuated Iooka on the approach of the enemy. General Roscrans denounced him for the act and desired to have him tried and punished. I sustained the Colonel at the time because his command was a small one compared with that of the enemy, not one-tenth as large, and I thought he had done well to get away without falling into their hands. His leaving large stores to fall into price's possession I looked upon as an oversight and excused it on the ground of inexperience in military matters. He should, however, have destroyed them. This last surrender demonstrated to my mind that Roscrans' judgment of Murphy's conduct at Iooka was correct. The surrender of Holly Springs was most reprehensible and showed either the disloyalty of Colonel Murphy to the cause which he professed to serve or gross cowardice. After the war was over, I read from the diary of a lady who accompanied General Pemberton in his retreat from the Tallahatchie that the retreat was almost a panic. The roads were bad and it was difficult to move the artillery and trains. Why there should have been a panic I do not see. No expedition had yet started down the Mississippi River. Had I known the demoralized condition of the enemy or the fact that Central Mississippi abounded so in all army supplies, I would have been in pursuit of Pemberton while his cavalry was destroying the roads in my rear. After sending cavalry to drive Van Dorn away, my next order was to dispatch all the wagons we had under proper escort to collect and bring in all supplies of forage and food from a region of 15 miles east and west of the road from our front back to Grand Junction leaving two months supplies for the families of those whose stores were taken. I was amazed at the quantity of supplies the country afforded. It showed that we could have subsisted off the country for two months instead of two weeks without going beyond the limits designated. This taught me a lesson which was taken advantage of later in the campaign when our army lived 20 days with the issue of only five days rations by the commissary. Our loss of supplies was great at Holly Springs, but it was more than compensated for by those taken from the country and by the lesson taught. The news of the capture of Holly Springs and the destruction of our supplies caused much rejoicing among the people remaining in Oxford. They came with broad smiles on their faces indicating intense joy to ask what I was going to do now without anything for my soldiers to eat. I told them that I was not disturbed, that I had already sent troops and wagons to collect all the food and forage they could find for 15 miles on each side of the road. Countenances soon changed and so did the inquiry. The next was, what are we to do? My response was that we had endeavored to feed ourselves from our own northern resources while visiting them, but their friends in grey had been uncivil enough to destroy what we had brought along and it could not be expected that men with arms in their hands would starve in the midst of plenty. I advised them to immigrate east or west 15 miles and assist in eating up what we left. End of Section 30. Recording by Jim Clevinger, Little Rock, Arkansas. Jim at JOCCLEV.com